Gerald Holtom, a professional designer and artist and a graduate of the Royal College of Arts, first designed the Peace symbol in 1958 for the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (CND). Though it is primarily known as the symbol for nuclear disarmament in Britain, in the US and around the world it is generally known as the peace symbol. A few people are said to have introduced the symbol to the US: Bayard Rustin, a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr., brought it over to the US, on his return from participating in the first Aldermaston March; Albert Bigelow, a pacifist protester, sailed his small boat outfitted with the CND banner into the vicinity of a nuclear test in 1958; and also Philip Altbach, a freshman at the University of Chicago, who traveled to England to meet with British peace groups as a delegate from the Student Peace Union (SPU) purchased a bag of the peace symbol buttons while he was in England and brought them back to Chicago where he convinced SPU to reprint the button and adopt it as its symbol. Nevertheless, it became widely used in civil rights marches, it appeared on anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, and was even seen painted in protest on American GI helmets. It appeared on the walls of Prague when the Soviet tanks invaded in 1968, on the Berlin Wall, in Sarajevo and Belgrade, on the graves of the victims of military dictators from the Greek Colonels to the Argentinean junta, and most recently in East Timor. The symbol, initially created to protest violence, remains for the same purpose; it continues to represent peace in this world and is directed and worn for anyone who will look or listen to its simple message.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
The Peace Symbol
Gerald Holtom, a professional designer and artist and a graduate of the Royal College of Arts, first designed the Peace symbol in 1958 for the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (CND). Though it is primarily known as the symbol for nuclear disarmament in Britain, in the US and around the world it is generally known as the peace symbol. A few people are said to have introduced the symbol to the US: Bayard Rustin, a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr., brought it over to the US, on his return from participating in the first Aldermaston March; Albert Bigelow, a pacifist protester, sailed his small boat outfitted with the CND banner into the vicinity of a nuclear test in 1958; and also Philip Altbach, a freshman at the University of Chicago, who traveled to England to meet with British peace groups as a delegate from the Student Peace Union (SPU) purchased a bag of the peace symbol buttons while he was in England and brought them back to Chicago where he convinced SPU to reprint the button and adopt it as its symbol. Nevertheless, it became widely used in civil rights marches, it appeared on anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, and was even seen painted in protest on American GI helmets. It appeared on the walls of Prague when the Soviet tanks invaded in 1968, on the Berlin Wall, in Sarajevo and Belgrade, on the graves of the victims of military dictators from the Greek Colonels to the Argentinean junta, and most recently in East Timor. The symbol, initially created to protest violence, remains for the same purpose; it continues to represent peace in this world and is directed and worn for anyone who will look or listen to its simple message.
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2 comments:
i really like the idea of taking a symbol as the object of choice. it's a great thing because there is so much about it and yet it's so small that it can really be a focused look... it seems like it is interesting to think about the "false" uses that a symbol can be put to (something like how the swastika was originally a good sign, but now it's really really bad to have the lines in those directions, evevn on a quilting square). any of this with the peace sign? are you thinking of following any particular strand of its uses?
Yeah, there are the "crow's foot" and "chicken foot" readings of the symbol proposing that those who use it are cowards. There is also some link that i heard of about worshiping Satan. But i find it interesting that most of the insults or bad readings of the symbol are really attacks on peace and I want to look more into those instances.
I think it would be really interesting and fun to see who exactly used the symbol and if there were any differences in their looks on it as well as the most recent uses of it.
I found out that it is not copyrighted so that anyone can use it. I would like to analyze that decision also.
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